Hospice awareness

I’ve been prompted to write about a worthy cause, North Haven Hospice’s lead-up to Hospice Awareness Week with its message ‘dying matters to the living’. It’s made me ponder a few things.

Family and friends, young and old, can pass away through terminal illness. Believing lessons are learnt in life and often looking at negatives in the hope of attaining a positive, I wonder what lesson is in such a situation. People experience joy to sadness, confidence to doubt, inner peace to turmoil, the list goes on. No one gets it totally perfect. The lesson may be to never take life for granted. Nature, family, friends, pets and researching topics does it for me.

The question though, what can I do? The answer was not what I was looking for…not much… to put a small donation in the collector’s bucket on 14^th May. How disappointing! Searching my sole I know from personal experience that caring for the elderly requires a lot of time. We can all have commitments. Hopefully in the future I’ll get to do more. Maybe I should remember something I was taught through the action of my parents, charity begins at home. If more people were able to look after one’s own we would not require so much of the services provided, but It’s not a perfect world.

Through various circumstances many need the help of Hospice and those who provide its services. Through this use of ‘Letter’s to the Editor’ I wanted to give a plug for this appeal.

Oh, I was also taught to look after myself so I can look after others. So, if like me you can only drop a little into that bucket, or perhaps not even that, remember what else you put into this world and don’t beat yourself up too much.

Hospice awareness week is 17th to 23^rd May

Pat Slater

Maunu

(abridged items in italics)